Eating

After several days of warmer weather and sun over the past week it has turned cold again these past few days.  Cold enough that I have felt the need for a hot lunch most days.  What better hot food to have for lunch than soup.  I had thought the soup days were coming to an end.  I discovered a huge amount of land cress (a land version of water cress) had suddenly grown in my polytunnel during our warmer days, so I decided to make some soup with it.  It was very green and very tasty, more so as the ingredients were mostly home grown.  I made this recipe up, you can tell, the quantities are vague!


Watercress Soup
1 onion
1 medium potato
Grated nutmeg
1 1/2 pints vegetable stock
Large handful of land/water cress

Roughly chop the onion and gently fry in butter until clear.
Peel and roughly chop the potato and add to pan with stock and nutmeg and cook until potato is nearly cooked.
Remove thick stalks from cress and add to pan and cook for a few minutes.
Blend to remove lumps.

Eating

This post is all about soup.  At the weekend I visited my local farmers market and bought a large bag of veg with the intention of making a big batch of soup to freeze and eat for lunch during the month.  At this time of year soup is a great lunch meal, whether you at home or out and about.  It is easy to put in a flask and drink to warm you up whilst outside.  I made nine pints, we ate some over the weekend the rest went in the freezer.

I also had some rather wizened looking swede that had not been eaten yet, none of my recipe books had a recipe for swede soup so made one up, all quantities are approx as I did not weigh anything!

Swede Soup
1 onion
400g swede
1 small potato
1 small carrot
Freshly grated nutmeg
2 pints stock

Dice the onion and fry gently in butter in a saucepan until soft and clear.
Peel and roughly chop the other veg, add to saucepan and fry gently for a few minutes.
Add the nutmeg and stir through.
Add the stock and stir, cook for 15 minutes or until the vegetables are soft.
Allow to cool a little and blend.

I also made some carrot soup.  All the recipes that I have found for carrot soup include two ingredients that I cannot eat, tomatoes and lemon juice or it is the ubiquitous carrot and coriander which is notoriously difficult to get hold of where I live.  So I had a go at making it with coriander powder and it came out rather well, in my opinion anyway!  Again quantities are approx, due to not weighing anything.

Spicy Carrot Soup
1 onion
500g carrots
2 tsp coriander powder
1tsp cumin powder
Pinch chilli powder or more depending on your taste
1.5 pints stock

Fry the onion in butter in a large saucepan until soft and clear.
Roughly chop the carrots.
Add the spices to the onions and stir in, fry gently for a minute.
Add the carrots and mix throughly to coat with the onion spicey mix.
Add the stock and cook until the carrots are soft.
Allow to cool a little and blend.